I've frequently considered, and with full support from Paul Fowler at Extreme Poses, that I seem to be able to recognise with each set of drawings from a session an evolutionary change in some aspect, which to the 'untrained' eye may often go unrecognised. Often, that change has occurred comes as a surprise, but more than often the nature of the change, or the development, or the evolution, or the innovation (call it what you will) is the main surprise.
I've also talked in the past of how I may be helping to initiate change within myself by spending time reviewing my drawings and thinking about them in relation to the drawings of others. In this self analytical activity I often generate each time a different vocabulary to try to describe my work. This process of almost categorising what has taken place seems to draw a line in my mind around the particular emphasis, characteristic or phenomena. What then happens, quite unconsciously, is that I use what I have closed the door on as a base or springboard for the next step in my journey. I emphasis the unconscious aspect of this move because as I have said on a number of times recently 'I do not any longer go into a life-drawing session with a plan'. So what, if anything, guides me is that which is stored within the depths of my sub-conscious.
The above four drawings are of the model Clare at Extreme Poses in Stroud on April 25th 2019.
In essence in each one I bring together, overlap, superimpose those parts which fascinate me. Nothing new here then. I have been doing this consciously, and exploring and experimenting with its implications and outcomes, for a long time now. The one aspect which is consistent within these four compositions is the inclusion of the whole pose. And I wanted to do this. I had a sense that for far too long now I have been totally fascinated with what happens when one just brings parts together to generate a new whole, and with this a developing frustration that the beauty of the whole pose and any attractive gestural form is not engaged with.
So, I am considering that within these four drawings we see much more than an incremental step. I feel a 'breakthrough day'. I can probably find examples of this in this archive blog, but I feel there appears to be a clarity of intent not previously acknowledged by me.
Paul agreed that what was happening was something new. Towards the end of the morning we sat and talked for ten minutes or so. I said that I thought what is happening is that I am thinking about 'an intention' which I described as:
- two scales
- the whole gesture, and
- selected significant parts
but, the way these come together surprised.
I said that I did not 'consciously' consider my mark-making - I just drew!
So, what was I thinking about during the 30 minutes of each pose?
- her body: making the most of it (her pose, the gesture, her anatomical characteristic(s)
- the composition - within the edges of the paper (whether as a complete form within the space of the paper, as in the 3rd drawing, or one being deliberately cropped or moving into the space beyond the edges of the paper)
and possibly
- how to express, best, the dialogue between me and Clare's body, from my perception
So, yes, I am making/constructing a 'composition' on the paper. And, I recall, that I did, on this morning consciously think about the composition - i.e. how it sits within the rectangle of the paper.
An additional pre-occupation and one which has started to emerge recently is of placing one drawing on top of another. This is dealing with the quality of 'transparency' which has been around with me for some months now and is a characteristic of my work and frequently mentioned. But here I believe (and again this is something I am being conscious of, therefor thinking about) I am trying to discover the implications and any problems which may arise by drawing one thing on top of another. How much does one have to think about it? Does one have to think about it whilst doing it? Can two or three parts be superimposed without considering their juxtapositioning and any confusion or clarity issues which may arise. In my case any difficulty is easy to handle as I tend to only superimpose two or three parts on an A1 paper. My fascination with Francis Picabia has revealed that he superimposed up to eight drawings at a number of different scales on big canvases, often bringing in parts of animals and architectural features intertwined with whole poses and anatomical parts. My 30 minute poses have so far restricted my engagement with this fascinating issue. Is this just an aspect of my cubism or something quite separate from it? The simple answer is that it is just the way my life-drawing is changing, and perhaps I should stop putting a name to what I do.
A final observation. The medium: graphite pencils seem to hold such variety of weight of line - this allows an expression of a) initial exploratory outline, thro' to b) confident agreed emphasis.
